Lately I have encountered youtube pushing something call non sleep deep relaxation by Andrew Huberman after playing to some sleep related content. I tried it once and felt asleep promptly so I have been using NSDR for sleeping. I soon saw multiple youtube content on his morning rituals claiming to make people better at everything.

 He speaks charismatically and communicates well with public. However, a tiny bit of me wonders if he actually picked these some of these TCM practices to talk about. There is a huge area on  TCM practices for well being and Mediacorp Ch8 often discusses these with a western medicine trained doctor on a show,

I am astonished by how much his ritual sounds like TCM advice for well being that my husband practices.  Sufficient sleep , starting out in the morning to do some relaxation, exercising, showering with cold water while not looking through the phone. (My husband gargles with salt water instead of straight up drinking it.) There are lots of others as well – why didn’t he pick these up?

• Avoiding cold drinks and food
• drying hair well before sleep time, eating well before sleep time.
• going to bed at 10pm (because various organs start their repair at different times of the night)
• keeping feet warm with socks or warm soaks
• nourishing soups to supplement health
• Drinking warm tea or other plain beverages

It’s not only him. There is a huge beauty guru industry  towards traditional practices for great skin. Eg, guasha, jade rollers, staying out of the sun, consuming beauty supplements, etc.

TCM methods are not intellectually protected and therefore cheap. I can see why it is easy to pick it up and run with it. To be frank, the  typical over-educated plumpy/skinny white haired ladies or balding pot bellied finger wagging men is not going to be able sell it as well as good looking, well spoken young people who look like affluent bank sales men.